IMI News
- Launch of IMI2 – Call 11 on the exploitation of IMI project results
- Launch of IMI2 – Call 12, with topics on Alzheimer’s, data, vaccines, and more
- Catch up on the Call webinars
- Stakeholder Forum 2017 – focus on open innovation
News from our projects
Launch of IMI2 – Call 11 on the exploitation of IMI project results
On 19 July, IMI launched a Call for proposals on the exploitation of IMI project results. Most of the very first IMI projects have either finished or are coming to an end now. A number of these have generated significant results that would benefit from some support to facilitate their transition to long term sustainability and availability to the scientific community. The goal of this Call (IMI2 – Call 11) is to provide intermediate solutions to ensure the subsequent exploitation and sustainability of key results from the following IMI projects: EMTRAIN and PharmaTrain (both education and training), EUPATI (patient education), Open PHACTS (data management), RAPP-ID (infectious disease diagnostics), WEB-RADR (reporting of medicines side effects), and GetReal(incorporation of real world data into drug development). IMI2 – Call 11 is a single-stage Call and the deadline for submitting proposals is 24 October 2017.
- For more information on the Call, visit the Call web page and catch up on the IMI2 – Call 11 webinar.
Launch of IMI2 – Call 12, with topics on Alzheimer’s, data, vaccines, and more
On the same day, IMI launched IMI2 – Call 12, a standard two-stage Call for proposals featuring topics on Alzheimer’s disease and technologies; FAIR (‘findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable’) data; primary Sjögren’s Syndrome; a European Health Data Network; vaccines and older people; the blood-brain barrier; and a European screening centre. The Call has a total budget of EUR 126 million. Around half of this is from Horizon 2020, the European Commission’s research and innovation programme. This funding will go to eligible universities, small to mid-sized companies, patient organisations, etc. in the successful applicant consortia. The rest of the Call budget is the commitment from EFPIA companies and IMI Associated Partners.
- Deadline for submitting short proposals: 24 October 2017
- Find out more via the Call web page and the IMI2 – Call 12 webinars
Catch up on the Call webinars
IMI held a series of nine webinars in July, covering IMI2 – Call 11, all IMI2 – Call 12 topics, and IMI’s rules and procedures. Presentations from, and recordings of, all webinars are now available via the IMI website. All webinars on the Call topics featured a presentation by the EFPIA topic coordinator and time for questions and answers, while the webinar on IMI’s rules and procedures included presentations of IMI's intellectual property regime and tips on the preparation of proposal submissions.
Stakeholder Forum 2017 – focus on open innovation
Open innovation is the focus of the next IMI Stakeholder Forum, which will take place in Brussels, Belgium on 18-19 October 2017. On day one, we will be looking at IMI through the lens of open innovation, and discuss the results it is delivering through a dynamic, multi-stakeholder, collaborative innovation ecosystem. On the second day, two parallel tracks will focus on examples of IMI’s open innovation in practice: patient involvement and microbiome research. Confirmed speakers include:
- Nicola Bedlington | Secretary General, European Patient Forum
- James Cusack | Director of Research, Autistica
- Aled Edwards | Director and CEO of the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), Professor at the University of Toronto and Visiting Professor at the University of Oxford | IMI ULTRA-DD project
- Iain Gillespie | Provost and Pro-Vice-Chancellor at the University of Leicester
- Ilaria Passarani | Head of Food and Health, BEUC
- Stefan J. Scherer | Vice-President, Global Head Correlative Science, Novartis
- Kristof Van Emelen | CSO – Product Development, ProDigest
Registration will open shortly via the IMI website.
GetReal launches tool to assist pragmatic trial design
IMI’s GetReal project has launched an innovative tool to aid in pragmatic clinical trial design. Pragmatic trials aim to capture the true effect of a treatment strategy in the real world. As such, they provide a great opportunity to generate real-world evidence in the early stages of drug development. However, pragmatic trials are still in their early days and designing them is far from easy. GetReal designed the PragMagic tool in collaboration with gaming company IJsfontein. ‘In a user-friendly (and dare we say fun) way, PragMagic gives insight into the possible consequences of more pragmatic trial design choices and operational challenges on generalisability, risk of bias, precision, stakeholder & ethical acceptability, cost and duration,’ explained Mira Zuidgeest of the University Medical Center Utrecht. The project hopes that the new tool will increase the value and feasibility of pragmatic trials by informing stakeholders when designing and assessing pragmatic clinical trials. ‘The tool helps to balance the aim to be pragmatic with the feasibility of the trial and other implications of design choices such as validity of the trial results,’ said Dr Zuidgeest. For more information on the tool, visit the PragMagic website.
ChemPass receives highest monetary award from European Lead Factory
Hungarian company ChemPass has received EUR 5 000, the highest monetary award possible from the European Lead Factory, for the design proposals for compounds it submitted to the project. A large proportion of the project’s compound collection is synthesised based on ideas submitted by chemists around Europe. Ideas submitted are assessed by the project, and if they meet the standard, project scientists turn the ideas into compounds which are added to the project’s compound collection. To incentivise proposals, the project pays groups that submit ideas. In this case, ChemPass used its state-of-the-art software to devise some library designs. The first design to be accepted has already been turned into a library of over 90 compounds that have been added to the project’s compound collection. ChemPass CEO and founder Greg Makara is enthusiastic about the system. ‘The whole crowdsourcing idea is great,’ he said. ‘With a reasonable amount of effort, you can get great outcomes.’ Meanwhile, Jorg Benningshof of Mercachem, the European Lead Factory partner who oversaw the synthesis of the compounds based on ChemPass’s ideas, added: ‘External library designers inject further novelty and diversity in JECL [the Joint European Compound Library].’
EPAD project launches academy
IMI dementia project EPAD has launched the EPAD Academy with the goal of efficiently leveraging the project’s resources ‘to foster and develop academic research capacity and output in AD [Alzheimer’s disease] across Europe for maximum global impact’. According to the project, among other things the academy will be a space where the next generation of AD researchers and thought leaders can advance their careers. This is the focus of the first action of the academy, namely the creation of the register of EPAD fellows;. These early career pre-doc and post-doc researchers will be eligible for academy activities such as stays in other centres, webinars, online forums for brainstorming, competitions around specific challenges, and support for funding applications, among other things. So far, 23 EPAD Fellows have been confirmed from academia, industry and patient organisations in the consortium. In the longer term, the academy will also help in the creation of procedures that will make it easier for research teams both within and outside EPAD to access the project’s data, samples and participants with a view to deepening our understanding of AD onset and progression. Finally, the academy aims to support EPAD’s academic output in terms of scientific publications, participation in conferences and the development of guidelines and studies, and to maximise their visibility and impact. For more information on the academy, contact academy@ep-ad.org.
Join EMIF and i~HD for a conference on health data
The European Institute for Innovation through Health Data (i~HD) and IMI’s EMIF project will hold a joint conference on ‘Realising the Value from Health Data - Improving Care and Research’ in Madrid, Spain, on 21-22 September 2017. There will be a strong focus on progressing towards value based healthcare, comparing health ministry, health insurer, policy experts, pharmaceutical industry, and health technology assessment (HTA) perspectives. Through presentations and panel discussions, participants will find out how hospitals are successfully reusing patient data as learning health systems, and improving their data quality. The conference will also showcase the state of the art in clinical research using big data, presenting research findings that could only have been discovered using large scale data, showcasing the latest in analysing high dimensional data. A major part of the conference will be dedicated to patients’ perspectives on reusing their health data for research. Speakers come from the Spanish Ministry, European Commission, patient associations, health insurers, policymakers, clinical research and the pharmaceutical industry. i~HD is a not-for-profit European institute, with a mission to guide and catalyse the quality, interoperability and trustworthy uses of health data, for optimising health and knowledge discovery. It was born out of the IMI project EHR4CR. IMI’s EMIF project is developing a technology and governance framework for the identification, assessment and (re)use of data for health research, and it will showcase progress in its final year at the event.
‘Revitalising the Antibiotic Pipeline’ – DRIVE-AB’s final conference
'Revitalising the Antibiotic Pipeline', the final conference of IMI’s DRIVE-AB project, will be held in Brussels, Belgium on 5-6 September 2017. The event will bring together high-level policy makers, regulatory and public health experts, economists and representatives of pharmaceutical companies, the medical community and civil society to discuss DRIVE-AB’s results and recommendations and suggest solutions for their implementation around the globe.Some confirmed faculty members include representatives from the World Health Organization, the European Investment Bank, the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative, and the EU Joint Programming Initiative for AMR. In addition, over 20 posters on DRIVE-AB research and results will be showcased at the conference. Spaces are filling up fast - if you are interested in attending the conference, register your interest with Victoria Wells at VWells@BSAC.org.uk.